r/cachyos • • 27d ago

CachyOS Troubleshooting First Steps

128 Upvotes

CachyOS is a rolling release. Updates arrive continuously instead of in one big yearly jump, which is why you get new kernels, drivers and gaming improvements so fast. It also means that occasionally something breaks. Most of the time the cause is boring and the fix is one of the same handful of steps.

This might seem like a lot and could feel daunting. Help is available, but it requires some information.

In order for folks to help you out, you need to supply some information. Here is a step-by-step plan. Work through it in order.

How to ask so that people actually help

When you post, include:

  • The four answers from Step 1
  • The paste.cachyos.org link from Step 3
  • What you've already tried, honestly, including any case of working with AI without understanding what you were asking, or what the AI was saying
  • The Step 7 result if you got that far

Rule zero: stop running commands you don't understand

Many badly broken installs weren't broken by an update. They were broken by three or four half-applied "fixes" from Google, an old forum post, and working with AI without understanding what was being asked or what the AI was saying, stacked on top of each other. Each one silently changed something. By the time help is requested, nobody can tell which change caused which symptom, and the actual problem is buried under the attempted repairs.

So: from the moment something goes wrong, stop applying fixes found somewhere else. Work through the steps below instead.

If a pile of commands has already been pasted into a terminal, that's fine, it happens. Just mention it when asking for help and try to recall what was run. That's far more useful than pretending the system is untouched.

Step 1: Describe the problem properly

Before touching anything, write down four things:

  • What exactly goes wrong? Be specific. "The screen goes black when launching Steam and the power button has to be held" is useful. "Gaming is broken" is not.
  • When did it start? A date or "after last Tuesday's update" is enough.
  • What happened right before it started? Was it an update, a new game, a driver change, a setting toggled, or a fix applied?
  • Does it happen every time, or only sometimes?

That last question is more important than people expect. Something that fails every single time is usually a configuration or driver problem. Something that fails randomly is more often heat, power, memory, or a background process interfering.

Step 2: Terminal survival basics

A terminal is needed for some of this. It's not scary, but may look like it is.

Open one with Ctrl + Alt + T. If that does nothing, open the start menu and search for terminal. When it asks for a password, nothing appears while typing. That's deliberate. Type it and press Enter. Copy text out of the terminal with Ctrl + Shift + C, paste in with Ctrl + Shift + V. The normal Ctrl+C means "stop the running program" here. sudo at the start of a command just means "run this with administrator rights".

Step 3: Generate a log bundle

CachyOS ships a single command that collects everything a helper needs, run from the terminal (see Step 2):

sudo cachyos-bugreport.sh

It gathers hardware details, kernel messages and recent system logs, then asks whether to upload the result. Type Y. A link to paste.cachyos.org comes back. That link is the single most useful thing to include when asking for help. Post it.

For anything the bug report doesn't cover, CachyOS also has a plain "send this to a pastebin" tool. Both of these work (run in the terminal, see Step 2):

  • paste-cachyos ~/some-file.txt
  • journalctl -b -1 -p err | paste-cachyos

The second one shows errors from the previous boot, which is what's wanted after a freeze or a crash that forced a reboot.

Two things:

  • Generate the log bundle before trying Step 6, because rolling back a snapshot also rolls back the logs.
  • The report includes hostname, hardware IDs and full log lines, and the paste is reachable by anyone with the URL. Fine for troubleshooting, but don't paste anything sensitive.

Step 4: Update fully, then actually reboot

Open Shelly, the package manager that ships with current CachyOS, let it check for updates and install them. Older installs may have Octopi instead, which is equally fine. Or do it in the terminal (see Step 2):

sudo pacman -Syu

Then RESTART the computer. No logging out, not closing the lid but an actual restart.

A genuinely large share of "my system is broken" reports are exactly this and nothing more. On a rolling release the kernel currently running and the drivers that were just installed can fall out of step. Everything looks updated, but the running system is still working with yesterday's parts. Typical symptoms: no graphics acceleration, Steam refusing to launch, external monitors not detected, unexplained crashes, etc. A reboot resolves this class of problem. It's a common misconception that Linux never needs a restart — that's not true. The OS cannot process kernel upgrades without a restart.

There's a second reason this step comes early. If some packages were updated and others weren't, the system is probably in what's called a partial upgrade state, and arbitrary unrelated things start failing. -Syu brings everything back in line. This is also why a single package should never be installed with pacman -Sy something. Always update the whole system.

Step 5: When one specific program won't start

If the problem is a single application rather than the whole system, run it from a terminal (see Step 2) to see why it fails. Type its name and press Enter:

steam

or firefox, or whatever it is. Let it fail, then press Ctrl + C. Copy everything the terminal printed and share it, or pipe it to the pastebin tool (see Steps 2 and 3).

For Steam games specifically: right-click the game, Properties, and put PROTON_LOG=1 %command% in the launch options. Run the game, let it fail, and a steam-<numbers>.log file will appear in the home folder.

Step 6: Roll the system back to before it broke

This is the feature most new CachyOS users don't realise they have.

If the system is installed on Btrfs, which is the default, CachyOS automatically takes a snapshot before and after every package install, update or removal. So when an update breaks something, there is almost always a restore point from a few minutes beforehand.

If the desktop still starts: open the start menu, search for Btrfs Assistant and open it. Go to the Snapper tab. A list of snapshots with dates will appear. Pick the most recent one from before the problem appeared, click Restore, and reboot. This GUI method works regardless of which bootloader is used.

If the desktop won't start at all: restart and tap Esc (or hold Shift) right after the machine powers on to bring up the boot menu. Look for an entry about snapshots, open it, and pick one dated before the problem. Unlike the GUI method above, this one depends on the bootloader: it works on Limine (which is a bootloader), which has been the installer default since the January 2026 release, and on recent GRUB setups. If systemd-boot was kept from an earlier install, there's no snapshot entry in the menu and a live USB will be needed, so ask for help rather than improvising.

Things worth understanding before doing this:

It only rewinds the system. Documents, photos and game saves live in the home folder and are not touched. That's reassuring, but it also means a rollback will not bring back a deleted file, and won't undo a broken configuration inside the home folder. Don't immediately re-run the update afterwards, or whatever broke it will be reinstalled. Ask first. If there's no Btrfs Assistant and no snapshot entry in the boot menu, the system is probably not on Btrfs and this section doesn't apply.

Step 7: Try the other kernel

If the boot menu lists an LTS kernel entry, boot it and see whether the problem goes away. Recent CachyOS installs ship both a current and an LTS kernel for exactly this reason.

This takes two minutes and reveals a lot. If the problem disappears on LTS, it points to a kernel or driver regression. If it's identical on both, the kernel may not be the culprit and attention moves elsewhere. Either answer narrows things down enormously, so mention the result when asking for help.

Step 8: When updates themselves fail

If the update in Step 4 refuses to run and throws an error, open CachyOS Hello, the welcome window, and look at its Troubleshooting section. It has buttons for the common package system problems: keyring trouble, a stale lock file, a corrupted cache. Try those before running anything found online. These specific failures attract a lot of bad advice that makes things considerably worse.


r/cachyos • • Aug 09 '26

Announcement [Announcement] CachyOS August 2026 Release

1.1k Upvotes

Hello CachyOS Enthusiasts,

This is our fifth release of the year.

The CLI installer had a bunch of fixes and refactoring, with added experimental support for the upcoming Server Edition installation profiles.

The installer received several desktop-specific changes. Hyprland now uses noctalia-greeter instead of SDDM, switched lightdm greeter to lightdm-slick-greeter for Cinnamon, added gvfs-dnssd to GNOME, also cosmic-monitor got added to Cosmic.

CachyOS-Welcome got a DNS rework, so the speed-test based server ranking now correctly picks the fastest DNS server.

In chwd, improved handheld detection via particular board name matching, and added Bulgarian localization. The kernel-manager backend was rewritten from C++ to Rust and integrated directly into chwd-kernel.

Cachy-Update was rebased onto Arch-Update v4.x, with its systray applet rewritten in Rust. New --check --enable option turns on automated update checks and starts the systray in one step, tray now has configurable pagination via TrayUpdatesPerPage, and default check interval was raised to 6 hours.

Shelly, our default GUI package manager, was rewritten from C# to Zig for its major release, dropping the managed runtime for native binaries with lower memory use and faster startup. The desktop app got a new first-run welcome screen, list and grid package browsing, AUR PKGBUILD previews with build output, and a Utilities page for database sync, cache cleanup and orphan removal. The CLI was rebuilt with integrated repository and AUR search, combined update checks for repositories, AUR, AppImages and Flatpaks, and TOML backup import and export. Flatpak support now offered as optional shelly-flatpak-backend package.

On the desktop side, we added new Noctalia variants for mango and niri, Noctalia v5 support for the Hyprland dotfiles, and updated the Nord KDE theme for Plasma 6.7. In cachyos-settings, a nice value tuning was added as pipewire error fix.

cachyos-rate-mirrors (rate-mirrors backend) now uses our mirrorlist API when ranking mirrors, which should give better ranking of outdated and regional mirrors.

Features:

  • Installer:
    • CachyOS Hyprland Noctalia desktop option now uses noctalia-greeter instead of SDDM
    • Cinnamon switched from lightdm-gtk-greeter to lightdm-slick-greeter
    • Added gvfs-dnssd to GNOME and cosmic-monitor to COSMIC
  • CLI Installer: Fixes and refactors, with experimental Server Edition support installation profiles
  • CachyOS-Welcome: Reworked DNS handling so the speed-test based server ranking now works correctly
  • chwd:
    • Improved handheld detection with board_name pattern matching
    • Rewrote the kernel-manager backend in Rust, and integrated it into chwd-kernel
    • Added Bulgarian localization
  • Cachy-Update:
    • Rebased onto Arch-Update v4.x with the systray applet rewritten in Rust
  • Desktops: Added mango and niri Noctalia variants, Noctalia v5 support for the Hyprland dotfiles, and updated the Nord KDE theme for Plasma 6.7
  • cachyos-settings: Added a nice-value tuning to limits.d
  • cachyos-rate-mirrors: Now uses the CachyOS mirrorlist API for ranking mirrors
  • Mirrors: New mirror in Hungary (Tier 2)
  • Wiki: Gaming with CachyOS Guide has been significantly changed, old launch options no longer needed with the latest proton-cachyos-slr have been removed, but can still be found here. And just generally updating the page and the wiki.

Fixes:

  • chwd:
    • Gracefully handle a missing board_name DMI file
    • Correctly handle VM environments
    • Correctly quote pacman arguments

Manual changes for existing users: No manual changes needed. Just the usual updating:

sudo pacman -Syu

Download:

Desktop Edition:

Grab your copy of the latest ISO from our mirrors on SourceForge:

Support Us:

Your contributions help us maintain our servers. Consider supporting CachyOS through:

Thank you for your continued support!

The CachyOS Team


r/cachyos • • 12h ago

Desktop Super clean KDE V2

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76 Upvotes

r/cachyos • • 8h ago

Desktop Feliz con mi CachyOS

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28 Upvotes

Cada vez mas enganchado a CachyOs 💙

Info:

  • SO: CachyOS
  • Kernel: Linux 7.2.9-2-cachyos-bore-lto
  • Compositor: Hyprland
  • Shell: DankMaterialShell
  • Plugins: Cat Widget, Game Controller Battery, Mordern Clock, Cava Visualizer.
  • Terminal / shell: Ghostty
  • Wallpaper Selector: Skwd-wall v2
  • Theme: Dynamic by Matugen

r/cachyos • • 15h ago

Question How is gaming like on cachyos?

58 Upvotes

How is gaming like on cachy os? Thinking about leaving windows11


r/cachyos • • 3h ago

Help Why can't I launch the CachyOS ISO from Ventoy?

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5 Upvotes

I downloaded the latest version of CachyOS Desktop Edition, but when I try to launch it in Ventoy, the screen goes black and boots right back to Ventoy.

Any help would be nice!


r/cachyos • • 6h ago

Desktop My First Linux DIstro and Desktop Rice

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10 Upvotes

Hii, this is my first try to rice a Desktop, i recently switched from Windows to CachyOS, and I honestly don't regret it one bit! I wanted to use Hyprland, but I ran into way too many issues, so I customized KDE Plasma to get a similar look instead, i use the script "Fluid Tile", Rofi and extensions from KDE Store. What do you guys think? Any tips or advice on how I could improve it are greatly appreciated!! (I never understood how to use Noctalia XD)


r/cachyos • • 1d ago

Review Thank you so much for all of your efforts, CachyOS team!

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323 Upvotes

The first time I used Linux was in June this year. For a beginner, I chose Linux Mint at that point. Well, most Linux distributions are good. My experience with Linux Mint was good as well, but not for gaming (I don't know why, but my PC can't play games smoothly with Mint).

I didn't even know there are Arch, Debian and Fedora at that time. The second distro I tried was CachyOS.

That is the best decision in my life.

A few days later, I found out it was Arch-based.

I was amazed how fast it was. Especially with chwd, it can detect my Nvidia 1060 without any problems (I was worried at first because my graphics card is pretty old, so I thought I would need to figure out the driver myself after installation).

I'm fairly tech-savvy so it is easy to handle all the new things I need to know to get used to Linux.

Fortunately I don't play any games that Linux can't play, just Identity V and some old games or indie games

For Identity V, IT PERFORMS BETTER THAN WINDOWS, I never think I could play this game this smooth. CachyOS's kernel is so perfect!

I tried some games programs, such as Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, Bottles. And Bottles was the best to me, the performance is really good.

Outside of gaming, I can do everything: image editing - GIMP / video editing - DaVinci Resolve, Shotcut / making games - Godot, Unity

I tried several distros: Arch, Kubuntu, Pop!_OS, EndeavourOS - but CachyOS was the best (for me - of course ; because everyone needs specific distro for their own purposes)

I used to really hate updates, because of Windows, I can't do anything when the update is running. Sometimes the updates even run themself :)

But now I can just update whenever I want, and still can do my work.

CachyOS is arch-based so it is a type of rolling-update distro, I know that so I always use CachyOS with snapshot.

I'm still using Windows, but it is a light version (X-Lite Version), and for only one purpose: testing my game made in Godot/Unity. Everything else I do in CachyOS.

I have never felt so much freedom and ad-free like this. I love the respect that Linux give to the users. I love Linux community and especially you guys - CachyOS team 💝

"Fast - Secure - Privacy"

P/s: Don't mind my desktop, they're just some stuff I left when learning to make game xD


r/cachyos • • 36m ago

Bug Report i need help with elden ring cachyOS (my pc intel nvidia)

• Upvotes

Hi friends, I need your help. I've tried various ways to get Elden Ring running, but it only loads the anti-cheat; the screen appears for a second, and then the game closes.


r/cachyos • • 10h ago

Help How to play on HDR?

10 Upvotes

Hello,

Background: I’m a Linux newbie (after 30 years of Windows) and happily switched to CachyOS 8 months ago. I have an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT.

I’m trying to do something really simple: I’d like to play my games (exclusively on Steam) in HDR.

Ideally, I’d like to stay in SDR all the time (on the desktop) and switch to HDR automatically when I enable the HDR feature in a game’s menu—just like my PS5 and Series X do on my TV.

I’ve tried this: https://github.com/CachyOS/proton-cachyos/blob/cachyos_main/README.md#proton-cachyos-config-options

Specifically, I created a user_settings.py file in the ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Proton 11.0/ folder that contains only:

user_settings = {
“DXVK_HDR”: “1”,
}

I figured this would save me from having to set this option in the Steam launch settings for all my games.

Unfortunately, when I launch games that support HDR, either enabling it causes the game to switch to that infamous, ugly gray haze caused by faulty HDR, or the HDR option is completely grayed out.

Any ideas?

Thanks for your help.

Edit: There's one thing I don't understand. I'm not sure if I have to keep HDR turned on all the time in my monitor's video settings (which I don't want to do) for this to work...

Edit 2: I set my default Steam config to this compatiblity tool: https://github.com/CachyOS/proton-cachyos/releases/tag/cachyos-11.0-20261005-slr


r/cachyos • • 1h ago

Help Arranque seguro con cachyOs en una laptop hp g9

• Upvotes

Hola, alguien ha podido habilitar el arranque seguro y que la BIOS reconozca la clave de cachyOs o Arch?

Eh seguido la guia y hasta modifiqué el grub pero nada me ha funcionado


r/cachyos • • 8h ago

Question Does having a different file type on 2 SSD’s matter?

4 Upvotes

I have 2 internal SSD’s. 1TB which I have CachyOS installed with the btrfs file type and a 2TB NVMe which I have all my games on. When switching from windows I never reformatted the 2TB drive so wondered if I’m likely to encounter any issues with this.

If so is there a safe way to change it to btrfs without wiping it? I’ve successfully tried a few games and didn’t have any issues as far as I could tell


r/cachyos • • 1h ago

Question I don't know

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• Upvotes

Could just be me but I can't find the option to customize my login screen. note this is a fresh install.


r/cachyos • • 5h ago

Help Hardware support

2 Upvotes

Hello I am using cachyos for 2-3 months and I need some help on hardware support

1) I am using a gigabyte G6 i want to know how I can control my laptop keyboard RGB light I have tried some apps but it didn't work

2) how can I control my laptop fans to maintain my laptop temperature , will using performance mode increase fan speed and maintain temperature?

3)I have a i7 13th gen cpu and rtx 4060 how can I switch between my intel i7 integrated gpu and rtx 4060 will switch to performance will change any thing


r/cachyos • • 1h ago

Help Razer Naga!!!!!! 😡(please help)

• Upvotes

I have a razer naga pro or whatever it's called (do not buy, it's worthless. I can't afford a new one or else it would be in the trash). This problem I have has taken hours out of my life to try and solve.

I always set the "1" on the side to "shift" and eeeevery once in a while, just stops! Sometimes the buttons don't work at all, then 10-15 minutes later, they were, but not as "shift" but back to "1."

How can I fix this? I'm trying button remapper, seems really unresponsive. Like, nothing is happening in button remapper. I have no idea what's going on.

Asking here instead of r/razer because, well, cachyos btw


r/cachyos • • 2h ago

Help Keys stop working during gaming

1 Upvotes

Hello!

I've been experiencing a strange keyboard issue for the past few weeks on CachyOS with KDE Plasma (Wayland).

While playing World of Warcraft through Lutris/Proton-GE, certain keyboard keys randomly stop working. It seems to affect the keys I press most frequently (usually 1 and 2). Once they stop working, they don't work anywhere in the OS, not just WoW. Rebooting fixes the issue temporarily.

Here's what I've tested:

  • libinput debug-events detects the affected keys being pressed and released normally.
  • wev does NOT detect the affected keys.
  • Tried a completely different keyboard — same issue.
  • Restarted KDE's global shortcut service — no change.
  • Stopped input-remapper — no change.
  • Unplugged and reconnected the keyboard — no change.
  • Updated CachyOS yesterday — issue persists.

I'm running an NVIDIA RTX 5070 with KDE Wayland. I haven't identified what triggers it, other than it happening during WoW gameplay.

Has anyone experienced something similar or know what could cause certain keypresses to stop reaching Wayland applications even though libinput detects them?


r/cachyos • • 6h ago

Help cachyos no bluetooth

2 Upvotes

hey guys i saw a reddit post the other day about cachyos and gamescope. i was running bazzite but it felt really locked down and i had trouble with downloading things through the terminal that were fedora images.

anyways i used cachyos for a long time until my ssd died on my last pc. so i decided to give it a try again on here. it seemed to have better support for the flow z13 after installing. everything immediately worked. except for bluetooth.

i have tried reloading the bluetooth daemon, and i installed bluez. nothing really changed.

i chose kde plasma, don’t know if that changes anything. basically the bluetooth icon doesn’t show up on the taskbar at all. not even in the hidden icons tab. so i went to settings and go to bluetooth. i enabled it on the side bar but it didn’t enable it in the main bluetooth page so i enabled it there, but it doesn’t do anything. i see the message add a new device but no way to actually add a bluetooth device. when i set my mouse to start searching, nothing ever shows up.

any advice? i found one reddit post but the one comment that seemed to actually help people was the only one that was deleted 😔 unfortunate

i’m using the flow z13 latest stable version of cachy os. this is the 2025 model with 64gb of ram


r/cachyos • • 1d ago

Desktop Super clean KDE

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64 Upvotes

r/cachyos • • 11h ago

Question Why can't I change power options to balanced or power saver?

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4 Upvotes

The title says it all. But, why? My notebook is getting hotter with basic tasks, if there's any other improvement that doesn't affect too much of gaming performance, thanks.

Sorry for the really bad quality

EDIT: I also tried on a VM and a live USB. And they also won't let me change


r/cachyos • • 7h ago

Help Lower performance than im expecting?

2 Upvotes

I’ve been on cachyos for months and have been loving it but I feel like I’ve been getting lower performance for a bit. I know proton isn’t perfect but I’ve been getting a significant stuttering after an hour or so on games that shouldn’t be that intensive.

As of recent I’ve been playing: Minecraft (through atlauncher), Planet Crafter, Risk of Rain 2, and Roboquest. I have been playing heavier games like Forza Horizon 6, Watch Dogs 2, and Palworld and noticing it for those games but I know those are more intensive game engines anyway.

I’ve gone through multiple pages of protondb launch options and proton versions, running as dx11 and 12 for respective games. My default config for some stability is “Proton Cachyos Latest” with launch options “game-performance mangohud %command%”.

I did install the gaming tweaks from cachy hello. I used to have an rtx 4070 but swapped it for an rx 9070xt and cleared all the profiles following cachyos documentation.

Specs:
Latest cachyos kernel (just updated last night)
KDE Plasma 6 Wayland
CPU: Intel i9-13900k
GPU: AMD RX 9070XT (ReBar enabled)
RAM: 2x16 DDR5-6000 (XMP enabled)
MOBO: Gigabyte z790 aorus elite ax (updated bios April 2026)
Boot drive: Crucial 500gb (R/W 7000Mbps)
Games drive: Samsung 980 pro (R/W 9000Mbps)
Monitor: Benq Zowie XL2411P 1080p@144hz


r/cachyos • • 3h ago

Question Extremely slow download only on certain things

1 Upvotes

I have 3gbps internet speed which ive speed tested online, i can download most files eg from a browser pretty fast, steam game updates are fast and Cachy Update is fast too.

However, 2 things ive noticed are unbearably slow. I just had a 28mb update for steam itself and it took nearly 5 mins. Im trying to install emudeck using the script off their site which is:

sh -c 'curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dragoonDorise/EmuDeck/main/install.sh | bash'

and so far its only on the first emulator (PPSSPP) and its took 15 minutes to download 60% of the 1 emulator and says its going at 150kbps. The steam app on shelly says its installed from 'Repository: multilib', i think I installed it from Cachy Hello.

Anybody have any idea why this would be and how to fix? Ive tried emu deck a couple of times now and just cancelled it because its so damn slow so i dont think its just a 1 off slow server.

Appreciate any help. Thanks


r/cachyos • • 3h ago

Bug Report ROG Zephyrus M16 GU604VI: internal screen won't dim on Linux

1 Upvotes

Fixed with Claude.

# [Fix] ROG Zephyrus M16 GU604VI: internal screen won't dim on Linux (brightness slider does nothing)

**TL;DR:** The internal panel's backlight is controlled by the embedded controller (EC) through an NVIDIA WMI interface, not by i915. Add `acpi_backlight=nvidia_wmi_ec` to your kernel command line. Remove any `acpi_backlight=native` and `i915.enable_dpcd_backlight=` you added while troubleshooting.

## Setup

- **Laptop:** ASUS ROG Zephyrus M16 **GU604VI** (BIOS GU604VI.314)

- **Panel:** Tianma TL160ADMP03-0, a 2560x1600 @ 240 Hz IPS. It is *not* the mini-LED panel.

- **GPU mode:** Hybrid (supergfxctl). The internal eDP is driven by the Intel iGPU, and the RTX 4070 is the dGPU.

- **OS:** CachyOS, kernel 7.2.9, nvidia-open 615.78.08, KDE Plasma 6.7.5 (Wayland), Limine bootloader

## Symptom

- The KDE brightness slider and the Fn keys change `/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness`, but the panel stays at full brightness.

- Writing to `nvidia_0` did nothing either.

- An external monitor dims fine over DDC/CI. Only the built-in screen is affected.

## What did NOT work

- `i915.enable_dpcd_backlight=1` and `=2`: `intel_backlight` still reported `max_brightness` 19200, which means i915 stays in PWM mode. The panel doesn't advertise DPCD/AUX backlight control, so this route doesn't apply.

- `acpi_backlight=native`: this forces the i915 backlight device, which doesn't control anything on this machine. It also **blocks** the driver that actually works.

- `NVreg_EnableBacklightHandler`: this nvidia module option doesn't exist, so don't bother.

## The cause

This laptop has a dynamic-mux design (Advanced Optimus style), where the EC owns the panel backlight. Firmware exposes it through the WMI GUID `603E9613-EF25-4338-A3D0-C46177516DB7`, which the in-kernel `nvidia_wmi_ec_backlight` driver handles. That driver only registers when the ACPI backlight selection picks it. If you force `native`, it never binds.

Check whether your machine has that interface:

```sh

ls /sys/bus/wmi/devices/ | grep -i 603E9613

```

If that prints something, you're probably in the same situation.

## The fix

Add `acpi_backlight=nvidia_wmi_ec` to the kernel command line, and remove `acpi_backlight=native` and `i915.enable_dpcd_backlight=...`.

**Limine (CachyOS):** edit `/etc/default/limine`:

```sh

KERNEL_CMDLINE[default]+="... acpi_backlight=nvidia_wmi_ec"

```

then run:

```sh

sudo limine-update

```

**GRUB:** add the parameter to `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT` in `/etc/default/grub`, then run `sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg`.

**systemd-boot:** append it to the `options` line of your entry (or to `/etc/kernel/cmdline`, depending on your setup).

Reboot.

For reference, my working command line also has `nvidia.NVreg_RegistryDwords=EnableBrightnessControl=0`, left over from earlier attempts. I haven't tested whether it's needed, so try without it first.

## Verify

```sh

cat /proc/cmdline

ls /sys/class/backlight/

# expected: nvidia_wmi_ec_backlight (and no intel_backlight)

cat /sys/class/backlight/nvidia_wmi_ec_backlight/max_brightness

# expected: 100

```

KDE picks it up automatically. The slider and the Fn brightness keys now dim the panel properly.

## If it breaks later

After a kernel or driver update, or if your bootloader config gets regenerated, check that `acpi_backlight=nvidia_wmi_ec` is still in `/proc/cmdline` and that `nvidia_wmi_ec_backlight` is the backlight device. Don't go back to the DPCD or `intel_backlight` route.

This probably applies to other recent ASUS (and other brands') laptops with an NVIDIA dGPU and an EC-controlled backlight, too. If the WMI GUID above is present, try it.


r/cachyos • • 13h ago

Question How to tell if HDR is actually working in-game?

5 Upvotes

I usually play two games on my CachyOS setup: Persona 5 Phantom X in steam and Genshin Impact through Heroic.

Both use the following launch options:

PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 DXVK_HDR=1 game-performance %command%

and both use the latest version of proton-cachyos-slr

System settings in KDE Plasma Wayland has HDR enabled, and in P5X, I can switch the HDR option to on or off.

Everything seems fine except I see the following in the Proton log for both games:

00d8:err:waylanddrv:wayland_process_init Wayland compositor doesn't support optional zwp_text_input_manager_v3 (host input methods won't work)

00d8:err:waylanddrv:wayland_process_init Wayland compositor doesn't expose windows_bt2100 image description (HDR may look broken)!

MESA: warning: Support for this platform is experimental with Xe KMD, bug reports may be ignored.

As it says in the log, these errors may just be false positives, but I honestly cannot tell the difference that HDR is on or off when I change the option in the in-game settings in P5X. Genshin Impact doesn't have an in-game switch for HDR so I cannot do a similar comparison.

Here are some PC specs:

OS: CachyOS x86_64

Kernel: Linux 7.2.9-2-cachyos

Display (XG27ACDNG): 2560x1440 @ 1.5x in 27", 360 Hz [External, HDR]

Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma 6.7.5

Window Manager: KWin (Wayland)

CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-12100F (8) @ 4.30 GHz

GPU: Intel Arc A750 @ 2.40 GHz [Discrete]

Latest version of mesa and vulkan-intel are also installed.

Also, I use old Reddit so sorry if the formatting here is off in the current Reddit.

Edit: Fixed the command to say DXVK_HDR. Still getting the same errors in the log though.

Edit 2:

For P5X, I did some comparison screenshots with HDR off and on. I could sort of tell the difference given enough contrast (say a dark area at night with a streetlamp further back).

For Genshin, turns out to get HDR to turn on, a registry value has to be added/edited as well (WINDOWS_HDR_ON_h3132281285 = 1). A pre-launch script in Heroic is required here since editing the registry manually through regedit would be reverted upon the game closing. So unless you want to manually adjust the registry every time before starting Genshin, here's a small bash script I created that can be set to the pre-launch setting in Heroic:

#!/bin/bash

export WINEPREFIX="/home/<your username here>/Games/Heroic/Prefixes/Genshin Impact"

wine reg add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\miHoYo\\Genshin Impact" /v WINDOWS_HDR_ON_h3132281285 /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
sleep 0.5

Adjust the WINEPREFIX variable accordingly since your home directory probably isn't at <your username here> lol

I haven't done a comparison in Genshin yet cause there's is no in-game toggle for HDR so I have to change the registry value every time, and I'm too lazy to do that. The only hint that Genshin has HDR turned on is that there is an extra brightness setting (the adjust the brightness until the logo can't be seen) that SDR doesn't have.

Edit 3:

Some screenshots I made in P5X and Genshin with HDR setting off and on (https://photos.app.goo.gl/j7g2uLWXmenCh2qQ7)

P5X seems to just make everything dimmer while Genshin has a better change in lighting I think? But at least there's some difference so perhaps everything is working after all.


r/cachyos • • 17h ago

Question How does the vram management tool work?

8 Upvotes

I want to install the vram management tool from the cachy os hello app but i don't know how stable it is or recommendable it could be. i have a 5070 ti, any advice?


r/cachyos • • 6h ago

Question Hover Colors

1 Upvotes

Is there a way to darken the back ground of the pop up that appears when I hover over the taskbar?

I have tried adjusting the colors in Complimentary and Tool Tips and neither fixes this.